Congratulations to Wikimedia, Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and reddit for announcing this week their intention to switch their websites over to encrypted HTTPS connections by default.

Using an HTTPS connection helps protect the privacy of what people are doing online—making them more willing to read and write about controversial topics. It stops network operators from easily snooping on users’ reading habits, profiling the users’ activity within sites, invisibly altering or censoring web site content, or even injecting malware.

The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.

Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy “generally no privacy” in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications — meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans’ e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that require search warrants for hard drives in someone’s home, or a physical letter in a filing cabinet. (Read more)